June 2012

When recruiting for a role, typically a job description or specification (Job Spec) is developed. Once the role is filled, the Job Spec is put in a drawer to gather dust. All too often, they are developed because someone insisted you cannot recruit without one so you find an...

Organisation design – how the elements of an organisation are configured to deliver the strategy – is absolutely critical to the success of an enterprise. Yet how much do we know about HOW organisations actually “do” organisation design? Do organisations follow a similar...

When designing an organisation, most people think of the big questions. Is it a product or functional organisation? How do you balance the need to be local for customer responsiveness or increased cost control vs the need to be global for functional excellence or improved...

I’ve mentioned this 1943 organisation chart from Walt Disney before: Following some small but intensive (armchair) research on its origins to authenticate it I found the source (allegedly) to be an employee handbook. While looking around at org charts from a few decades ago, I...

Here in Concentra, tucked in behind the gourmet food stalls of Borough Market, opposite a shop front featured in Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, we’ve been experimenting with organisation charts. I thought it was worth sharing a few learnings and asking for feedback along the...

It’s one thing to have someone describe the taste of a lemon to you … sharp, zesty, bitter, tangy, citrus-y. It’s quite another to taste the lemon itself – to experience it. And so it is with organisation design. Reading about organisation design is different from experiencing...

A good friend of mine recently moved from being a Senior Partner in a Law Firm to an Executive with a Global Financial Institution. Having served large institutions in their M&A for over 30 years, he thought he knew how corporates worked. One of the biggest shocks was the...